It’s always surprising to learn that The Importance of Being Earnest was initially criticized as being about nothing – when it seems, 125 or so years on, a much more of a piercing critique of society than Wilde’s melodramas that have social issues at their centre that now seem moot.Librivox public domain recording of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. But the only real stumble in the show is that first act – which is held back by an overly constricted design, in set and costume, and an overemphasis on having characters strike poses. Hennig sets the bar so high that you can’t help but notice that other performances aren’t quite as pitch-perfect. Hennig is not afraid to play the villain as needed, but her brusque and pragmatic manner is endearing in its own way. Too many directors of Earnest take Jack’s annoyed assertion that she is a “Gorgon” at face value, when she is, in fact, the most sensible of the bunch. It’s Hennig as Lady Bracknell who is the stand-out of the production, however. This is utter nonsense and full of truth – and Course does a fine job pivoting between all its paradoxes. And certainly once a man begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not? And I don’t like that. The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man. “Outside the family circle, papa, I am glad to say, is entirely unknown. One of Wilde’s most enduringly funny speeches, it struck me on this viewing, is Gwendolyn’s about her always off-stage father, Lord Bracknell. It’s a strength of Carroll’s production that the women and the men seem so well matched in wit. The height disparity between Course and Sundar Singh is played up to great effect in the hedges as well as when the two women – who are both in love with an Ernest who does not really exist – face off over tea. Characters appear first only as an umbrella or a hat or get lost on their way out (in the particular case of Ric Reid’s frequently flustered Canon Chasuble.) Newly minted Siminovitch Prize winner Gillian Gallow has designed a truly delightful set for this part: A garden with a hedge maze behind it that turns every entrance and exit into a visual pleasure.

The importance of being earnest script